Last week it was noted that Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard “Ric” Grenell delivered a satchel of classified documents to AG Bill Barr. The exact content of the documents was unknown.

Today ABC is reporting that Grenell has requested AG Bill Barr use the declassification authority, granted to him by President Trump in May 2019, to declassify the list of Obama officials who requested unmaskings of Trump campaign and administration officials.

WASHINGTON – Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has sought to declassify a list of former Obama administration officials who were allegedly involved in the so-called “unmasking” of former national security adviser Michael Flynn in his conversations with the former Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, a senior U.S. official tells ABC News.

[…] His visit indicates his focus on an issue previously highlighted in 2017 by skeptics of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, specifically allegations that former officials improperly unveiled Flynn’s identity from intercepts of his call with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

[…] Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice has openly acknowledged unmasking the identities of some senior Trump officials during the presidential transition but has strenuously denied ever leaking any identities and said nothing she did was politically motivated.

[…] In 2017, Rep. Devin Nunes — a longtime critic of the Russia investigation — accused the Obama administration of improper unmasking of Trump transition officials after he secretly met with two national security officials at the White House who he said provided him with documents supporting his assertions. (more)

March 27, 2017, then House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Devin Nunes, held a brief press conference and stated he was provided intelligence reports brought to him by unnamed sources including ‘significant information’ about President-Elect Trump and his transition team.

These reports included unmaskings of President Trump campaign officials; and included Donald Trump himself…. You know what that means:

1.) …”On numerous occasions the [Obama] intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.”

2.) “Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration; details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”

3.) “Third, I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition members were unmasked.”

4.) “Fourth and finally, I want to be clear; none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities, or of the Trump team.

“The House Intelligence Committee will thoroughly investigate surveillance and its subsequent dissemination, to determine a few things here that I want to read off:”

“Who was aware of it?”

“Why it was not disclosed to congress?”

“Who requested and authorized the additional unmasking?”

“Whether anyone directed the intelligence community to focus on Trump associates?”

“And whether any laws, regulations or procedures were violated?”

“I have asked the Directors of the FBI, NSA and CIA to expeditiously comply with my March 15th letter -that you all received a couple of weeks ago- and to provide a full account of these surveillance activities.”

.

The next week, April 4, 2017, you already know the routine. MSNBC is the favorable proprietary venue. Andrea Mitchell plays the role of media-legal-adviser, her client is Susan Rice. Live interviews are always the greatest risk (see: Evelyn Farkas) The full interview is below:

There are some interesting aspects to the interview:

Susan Rice @00:51 – …”Let me explain how this works. I was a National Security Adviser, my job is to protect the American people and the security of our country. That’s the same as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.; and every morning, to enable us to do that, we receive – from the intelligence community – a compilation of intelligence reports that the IC, the intelligence community, has selected for us –on a daily basis– to give us the best information as to what’s going on around the world.”

[Note, Susan Rice is describing the PDB]

“I received those reports, as did other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which, uh, a ‘U.S Person’ was referred to. Name, uh, not provided, just ‘U.S. Person’.

And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and assess it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.”

OK, so right there, in the very beginning of the forward narrative, Susan Rice is confirming the “unmasking” request(s) which can be pinned upon her, are directly related to her need to understand -on behalf of President Obama- intelligence for the President’s Daily Briefing (the PDB). This was a previous question now answered.

This is EXPLOSIVE, and here’s why.

Remember, the President’s Daily Brief under President Obama went to almost everyone at top levels in his administration. Regarding the Obama PDB:

[…] But while through most of its history the document has been marked “For the President’s Eyes Only,” the PDB has never gone to the president alone. The most restricted dissemination was in the early 1970s, when the book went only to President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who was dual-hatted as national security adviser and secretary of state.

In other administrations, the circle of readers has also included the vice president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with additional White House staffers.

By 2013, Obama’s PDB was making its way to more than 30 recipients, including the president’s top strategic communications aide and speechwriter, and deputy secretaries of national security departments. (link)

Susan Rice is admitting to “unmasking” names within intelligence reports to give her context for how they pertain to the overall briefing material. That briefing material is the PDB. That PDB goes to dozens of political people and political entities.

With dozens of people with access to President Obama’s PDB, Rice’s unmasking of the intelligence report names gave dozens of people direct access to unmasked intelligence – including Obama officials who could, perhaps did, use the PDB for specific and intentional political purposes.

l am confused – someone help me: 1) I understand that unmasking is ok if done to provide more context for the intelligence it is wrong when used in abusive fashion; 2) if Rice was able to unmask someone for her own use, does it mean that person was unmasked for all 30 recipients? I just want to understand the facts.

all illegal because they made up the Trump Russia garbage under the guise of Foreign ‘intelligence’ She should hang. Every thing they did to set it up and execute it was all based on hiding their years of crimes. Full Stop.

They used Carter Page as a conduit to investigate and “unmask” everyone in candidate Trump’s orbit. The kind of warrant they used against Carter Page (703?) enabled the corrupt administrative Obama state to investigate every single person Carter Page ever had an association with and all of their associations too. I think Carter Page was a willing plant used to grow the false Russia, Russia, Russia narrative and setup President Trump and his Team.

Pay attention. Sundance has spent more than two years explaining that Adm. Rogers intervention threatened to ‘unmask’ all the bad actors’ malfeasance. The solution was to create an excuse via FISA targeting Page, and they could look up to 3 hops from the target, and retroactively as well as currently.

Exactly, they had tasked the intelligence community to report every day on the phone numbers which were opened up to them by the CARTER PAGE FISA approval; which basically opened up the entire Trump team to them. The requested collection was provided every morning and whenever they saw a number which they did not know or previously get unmasked they would request unmasking.

And for those that this is going over their head (I tried explaining this to my FIL, big liberal, he just kept asking but why do it):

This enabled Obama and subsequently, the DNC/Hillary (and everyone with access to the unmasked info) to track and follow the Trump campaigns every move, every phone call/text, every download, travel, meetings, etc. This enabled them to know who Trump was interacting with, when the interaction occurred, and even what was said- unless it was in person, although if there was a phone in the room, or an Alexa or Google device…well, then even in-person conversations can be retrieved. Real time spying on a campaign.

And, like Bongino has been saying for a few years now, it’s going to light that it wasn’t just the Trump campaign, it was Flynn, it was Cruz, it was Carson, and so on. As he said, remember Carter Page was interacting with all three campaigns at one point in time: Trump, Cruz, and Carson. (I think it was Page, may have him mixed up w/ Manafort).

This is another example of how these people do something legal in order to accomplish and illegal or corrupt goal. Can the National Security Advisor unmask US persons? Yes. It’s legal.

Did the people who made it legal anticipate that the unmasking would be used to target the political enemies of Barack Obama, and do so in a scale nobody ever dreamed of? Nope.

It’s like how they used the IRS to target conservatives and tea party groups. The IRS can legally determine a non profit doesn’t meet this or that criteria. Was that power intended to be used to target hundreds/thousands of Barack Obama’s political enemies? Nope.

I learned a great new term here at CTH from another commenter: Color of Law. ie using an ostensibly legal process and badge of office to accomplish a corrupt/illegal end.

All this stuff is why, if we ever see indictments, they’re going to include the words “conspiracy to commit ______”

That’s the exponential problem these paper trails are creating for Obama and Crew. It is mathematically impossible to screw up this many times in only one direction without corrupt intent.

“For the purpose of Section 242, acts under “color of law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official’s lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim.
The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.”
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

see also
18 USC 241https://www.justice.gov/crt/conspiracy-against-rights
Section 241 of Title 18 is the civil rights conspiracy statute. Section 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the Unites States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same). Unlike most conspiracy statutes, Section 241 does not require that one of the conspirators commit an overt act prior to the conspiracy becoming a crime.

The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.

TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 241

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same;…

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

I was just reading a document Q linked to, and then this link off of that document. I am not a lawyer, but this statement caught my eye: It makes it clear to me that conspiring to commit treason, does not depend on actually committing treason.

Pg. 426 paragraph 3.
Under § 5440, Rev. Stat., the conspiracy to commit a crime against the United States is itself the offense without reference -to whether the crime which the conspirators have conspired to commit is consummated.

That is correct. I think there are other “conspiracy” statutes which also do not require the planned crime be committed. In this case, however, their plan came pretty damn close to success. Like Gettysburg close.

I can’t remember the exact figures, but I remember reading articles a few years back about samantha power, Susan rice and potentially others making hundreds, if not thousands of unmasking requests of raw intelligence, compared to just a handful made by previous administrations. It was very obvious then what was going on.

The article implies that the unmasked names make it into the PDB for everyone to see, but it also said Rice would request unmasking of names that she saw in the PDB. I guess both could be true if the names were flagged to be unmasked in all future PDB.

Rice has the authority to request unmasking as do others getting the PDB. They were using the PDB to provide the impetus to request the unmasking- the PDB goes out each day, they are getting information on the PDB about the campaign; names, and numbers from 702 searches of the NSA database. These items end up in the PDB but “redacted” per se, i.e. “U.S Person” or its just a phone number or address. They then now have the impetus to “legally request” to unmask the person. A very flimsy cover for their illegal deeds.

That’s how I am taking it. The Dossier and FISAs were to CYA for the long term illegal use of the NSA database. And the PDBs were being used to provide an air of legal cover for that illegally obtained information.

The short version: The unmasking was to further the political surveillance of the Trump campaign, and not for any legitimate intelligence or law enforcement purpose. It was abuse, plain and simple.

Which makes Trump’s victory in 2016 even more remarkable: The Obama Administration and Clinton campaign did everything possible to rig the election against Donald Trump and brought the full power of the mainstream media AND the surveillance state to bear … and she STILL lost.

Barr is being forced beyond “protecting the institutions”,….but really this,isn’t Grennel vs Barr,…or even PDJT vs Barr,…its really what it has been, all along;
PDJT vs McConnell.
Barr is just a proxie, as is Grennell.

Barr doesn’t have a choice… go look up the conviction rates on FBI cases taken to jury trials… about 20 points lower than any other case prosecuted by the DOJ – all other agencies which investigate crimes – treasury, Secret Service, etc…
…if you were on a jury, what kind of weight are you going to give to a FD 302?
I can tell you my opinion of any answer beyond “RIGHT HERE” to “Where is the video tape of this questioning?
IS you are full of crap… the only reason you don’t video tape is so you can fabricate and lie… there is no other reasonable explanation at this point in time…

Yes, its one of the things most were unaware of, prior to all this was this curious (!) business with FBI 302’s.

When the I.G.Horowitz investigators interviewed McCabe I believe it was.

They advised him of right to council, and RECORDED the interviews.
Later, when they came back for a subsequent interview (to confront him) he tried to say they misunderstood him, and what he had said the first time.
They offered to play the tapes, and THAT is when he admitted he had lied to them the first time.

Point being, its a useful tool, to be able to confront someone with the TAPES of their earlier answers.

It is now apperent to everyone that the tradition thats as old as the FBI, of 302’s, is gonna have to go away.

Yes, my first question was, who leaked this information to ABC. Given the lack of trust for these networks, why should we believe them when they tell us something we want to hear? Probably true, but disappointed if it is true it was leaked to ABC. Barr and others need to clamp leaks down or find out who is leaking.

“Susan Rice has openly acknowledged unmasking the identities of some senior Trump officials during the presidential transition but has strenuously denied ever leaking any identities and said nothing she did <>.”
Really? Then what WAS the motivation??– Elections have consequences.

Compare/contrast Grenell telling it like it is to Schiff and Barr. Schiff was a letter that Grenell released to the public. Everyone saw Grenell walk across with the satchel to talk to Barr. He is showing deference to an older man. Not calling him out. And Barr would know if Grenell has declas authority. Just a friendly “chat”. Grenell vs Schiff was a cat toying with a mouse. Barr (and everyone else) will also recognize the different approaches.

It is a real treat to watch Grenell do his job. He is a master at direct attack hidden behind a hard steel smooth delivery. I hope he continues this progression of ripping the walls down around the Obama led coup against Pres. Trump and America. I can’t wait everyday to read or watch video related to this man and what he will do next.

Wherever the President found Ric Grenell and then decided to employ him in his administration, it was a genius hire. At least it seems to be as we move along right now.

Rice was downstream from the waterfall of intelligence collecting of known targets. She is likely to be the link to Obama receiving the intelligence and then the creation of the feedback loop that included the “insurance policy”.

What I found stunning was this became routine.

I’d like to know which agency led this abuse. It is unlikely that this involved multiple agencies, but if it did that would be the most damming evidence yet of the Obama administration.

Tucker pushed pretty hard, “This was a witch hunt. Why didn’t you stop it?” Rooster stuck to the “the Russians interfered” and Tucker went with the “We have no evidence they hacked the DNC. What did they do?”

Rooster retorts, “We will never know about that server. But we put out a report on how the Russians interfered.”

I was happy that Tucker “outed” Gowdy, but Tucker stopped short of pushing harder related to Matt Gaetz’s complaint regarding he and Ryan’s blocking of the subpœna requested while Gowdy was in the house. It was great Tucker called him out, but it did not go far enough.

Prosecuting this as conspiracy is good because these traitors are going to run out of Lawyers when they all get indicted at the same time. The white shoe law firms will be totally overwhelmed trying to figure out which of their soon to be broke clients will rat out on their other soon to be broke clients. Most every Washington D.C. firm will have tremendous conflicts of interest with current or former employees under indictment.

F THAT. You take down everyone that broke a law. You lose all reasoning for the rule of law if you allow the guilty to dictate who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t because of race. Any way you slice this, there is going to be rioting. UNLESS, you let the big fish go. ALL of them. And then you just might get rioting from our side. After they let Hillary walk, I don’t think people will stand aside for that again and on a much larger scale by letting the whole admin walk. NO. Way. F. That…

There is an easy way to handle this, you have a congressional hearing and say, show me your evidence and I’ll show you mine. Please, by all means, gather all the evidence you have that led you to believe that Trump was a Russian asset and if you can convince Americans that aren’t ideologues like you, essentially the middle Americans, then you’ll be ok.

And from here on out we will see how the American people side with who. This is exactly how this could be handled. Hold a LIVE hearing for all the world to see. And you tell the other side, bring everything you’ve got. This is for all the marbles. If you have evidence that shows we are wrong, then it should not be a problem for the American people to believe you.

He might not want to unilaterally disclose something that is evidence in a criminal proceeding.

This is my theory for the “missing” 302. If there is, indeed, a baseline 302 that contradicts the Strzok/Page version, that is evidence of corrupt intent and (with the texts) a criminal conspiracy directly implicating Strzok, Page and McCabe.

Sometimes you want to show targets the evidence to see how they react. Sometimes you don’t because you want to determine who the truth tellers are, and compare everyone’s version of what you know or believe to be the truth.

Grenell and new COS are making a big difference. This election is between PTrump and Obama. Obama and dims can see Biden is good for nothing so they are going to take Biden’s campaign now onward and try to make him basement president..

Catch 22 for Bill Barr? Not sure. But now he has the ammunition he never thought he’d have courtesy of the Director of National Intelligence, Ric Grenell. AG William Barr has the history of America staring him in the face. Don’t be naive, Bill. Follow the sunlight and we all win, win, win!

AG William Barr has a choice to go down in history as the man who helped President Trump save the United States and the world from evil, or he will go down in history as the man who helped evil win by covering up the sunlight.

I hope Trey Gowdy gets exposed in all this corrupt bullshit!!! I just watched an interview with him and Tucker Carlson where the arrogant asshole tried to blame his and the other Rhinos on Devin Nunes!!!
At first I thought he didn’t know because he said he didn’t read the documents and relied on briefings. Claimed he changed his mind after reading them but defended his statement about Russia and Robert Mueller and tried to throw Devin under the bus!!!
What an unbelievable coward who’s as Deep State as the come, and I am now more convinced than ever he was in on the coup!!! We know Trey, and there’s nothing you can do about it!!!!

Let us not forget that ADmiral Rogers, before he was fired for going to President Elect Trump, found that secret megadata on THOUSANDS of Americans, picked up by the NSA computers, was revealed to the WH and politically connected FBI contractors via bogus FISA warrants issued at the request of the WH. This is probably the deep dark secret that the OBAMA WH had to keep from being exposed. As KT McFarland, Flynn’s assistant who was also fired, said, “we were just collateral damage in order to carry out the operation against Trump.

“They wanted to deflect attention to something very big. I don’t know what it was that they were trying to cover up. But they went to enormous lengths to cover it up. It’s very clear it wasn’t just a few rogue agents at the FBI. This is not done by some mid-level government official in the Justice Department or the FBI. It was the highest levels of the FBI,” she said, slamming fired FBI Director James Comey for laughing about wiretapping Flynn.

Uh Mike Rogers was not fired, though they (Clapper & Sec. Def. Ash Carter) did try to have him removed . He retired only after President Trump was sworn in and the NSA was moved under Full Military Command. Which is how it is today. There have been public reports (from around late 2019) stating Admiral Rogers is working/cooperating with Mr. Durham on his investigations.

~ It wasn’t a smooth transition or election ~ so here we are ~ doing what needs to be done ~

Officials from the President-elect Donald Trump incoming administration and President Barack Obama’s Cabinet and senior staff hold a transition meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House, Jan. 13, 2017. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Yes, he did. But maybe this is a ‘reminder’ that much of the illegal spying was done by the FBI, under DOJ (ir)responsibility. So, “clean up your own act”, AG Barr. (or I will, says Amb. DNI Grennell…and don’t try to wait for Mr. Radcliff…)

.) “Fourth and finally, I want to be clear; none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities, or of the Trump team.

This statement has always made me wonder just what in the hell team Obama was doing!

Were they taping President Trump and Melania in their private quarters of Trump Tower? Taping any other Trump family members in their daily lives? If it’s anything of this nature…people will flip out!!! The American public will not look kindly on this type of behavior, and take Obama and his precious “not a smidgen” image down in the gutter!!

After three and one half years of absolute treason, relentless pressure and illegal activities against the President and his family, they deserve better. Why must we wait for Sullivan to rule on Flynn and Barr to declassify documents? Enough already

“And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and assess it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.””

This article really puts into perspective why Obama greatly expanded intelligence sharing in his last days in office.

When you have minions seeded throughout the administration working on various issues to harm any opposition, it not only helps to keep them informed, but they can unmask who they want and further share/leak the information to meet their ends.

Much harder to figure out where that unmasking occurred when a large number are doing it. And sharing what they find.

This brings to memory those 15-20 individuals who where UNMASKED AMERICAN SPIES WHO were executed in CHINA within a few days of unmasking. Whoever was complicit in this move must be executed and the public made aware of the sentence. Likely it was at the order of Obama. This is one of the avenues we’ll find which of our Political Leaders + other high paid Officials are also on the CHINA PAYROLL….DEATH TO THEM ALL…. It’s like President Trump as said many times: ” NO President should every have to go through this again ” This cleanup and swift justice must instill in ALL minds – if caught you will be executed immediately…

”Let me explain how this works. I was a National Security Adviser, my job is to protect the American people and the security of our country. That’s the same as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.” Not to mention his speechwriter and political strategist (for the security of our country, don’tcha know.